Graduate school

See also

Research at the Department for Continuing Education

The Department has an active interdisciplinary research community, particularly with respect to public engagement and practitioner-based initiatives which build on the research interests of our academic staff and over 80 research students.

Dr Alison MacDonald

Departmental Lecturer in Archaeology

Biography

Dr MacDonald is the Course Director of the Undergraduate Diploma and Advanced Diploma in British Archaeology, and runs the Archaeology Weekly Class and Day & Weekend programme. She is also the Assessor for Archaeology for the Certificate of Higher Education. She was awarded her BA in Classical Civilisation and Ancient History from Sheffield University in 1989 and her doctorate from Oxford University in 2003. Her fieldwork is primarily in central Italy and her research interests include Roman landscape archaeology, Roman ceramics, and individuality and expression of identity in the Roman world.

Teaching

Alison teaches on the Undergraduate Certificate in Archaeology, the Undergraduate Diploma in British Archaeology and the MSc in Applied Landscape Archaeology. She has also authored a ten-week online course on Roman Britain and teaches this on a regular basis.

Research interests

She has worked on a number of landscape archaeology projects in Italy, including the Tuscania Archaeological Survey, the Sangro Valley Survey and the Upper Esino Valley Survey. These projects involved the study of past landscapes, and her work has focussed on the analysis of the Roman-period ceramics to further our understanding of changing settlement, society and economy. She is interested in the methodology of surface survey and how ceramic data inform on wider debates concerning the impact of Rome on towns and territories, and changes in rural communities and farming practices under the Empire and into Late Antiquity. Her current research is concerned with the study of material culture and identity in Italy and the provinces.